1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to the wager gaming industry, and more specifically to methods and systems for streamlining the process of developing wager games and obtaining regulatory approval for new games in an online environment.
2. Description of the Related Art
The wager gaming industry, especially gaming machine and gaming network, has been experiencing some significant technology advances in recent years. New gaming machine platforms and server-based gaming have fueled the need for a greater library of wager games. Sever-based gaming networks, especially has shortened the life cycles of games, as described below, after the discussion of new gaming machine platforms.
When a new video gaming machine platform is introduced by a wager gaming machine provider to a gaming establishment, the provider often touts the improved technical features of the new platform. They impress upon the customer features such as advanced hardware, graphics, and networking capabilities. However, gaming establishments, such as casinos, are often more focused on how their customers, the game players, will react to the new gaming machine. They are keenly aware that what is important to the users of the machines is the variety, quality, and number of games being offered by the machine, more so than the machines technical and engineering advancements. The number of games and necessary software that is available for game play on the new machine platform must be sufficiently high to attract gamers. Casinos gaming operators and their technical staff may appreciate the advanced hardware and networking capabilities of a new platform, for example, but players are almost entirely focused on what games they can play on the new machines and this focus, in turn, largely dictates whether a new machine platform will eventually have widespread acceptance in the gaming industry. New gaming platforms and machines need a large library of games to be financially feasible to casinos.
One technique gaming machine providers (who typically also provide or publish wager game software) have used to address the issue of the quantity and variety of wager games is to alter or modify only specific aspects of existing games or games that run on older or current platforms, i.e., ones that are familiar to game players and may have been successful. The games can be updated or upgraded to take advantage of the new platform. For example, the graphics, sounds, interface, and other external and user-related features, sometimes referred to as the “skins” of older games can be replaced or modified to take advantage of the new platform. The modified “new” game software offers upgraded visual and audio aspects may be inserted into a new gaming platform template and execute on the new machine. Much of the underlying game logic, as well as numerous other components that make up the game, does not need to change. Another technique is “backward” compatibility approach where an emulation engine is utilized to emulate the older or existing platform on the new machine, thereby enabling existing games to execute on the new gaming machine. Neither of these solutions is a practical long-term solution to creating a consistently growing library of wager games for new gaming machine platforms. They are essentially superficial fixes to a more complex issue and, moreover, both fall short of taking full advantage of the technical, user-related, and engineering advancements of the new gaming platform. The problem of limited growth of a game library will be even more acute with server-based gaming paradigm. With the advent of server-based gaming networks, gaming operators can change games on a gaming machine more efficiently than before. For example, the gaming operator can take off or “peel” the skin of a game and put on a new one. The consequence is that the lifecycles of games have shortened significantly or is expected to. In some cases where games had 7 to 10 year lifecycles, the lifecycles are expected to be reduced to 2 to 3 years or even down to 6 months. The players' interests are moving much faster (similar to the public's interest in new songs given the MP3 music distribution model).
Finally, another issue that arises from having to create a large library of new games is the backlog and time required by many gaming control boards and other wager gaming regulatory bodies to approve new wager games. It is worth noting that the cost of developing a game may be relatively low when compared to the cost of the regulatory process that is carried out by the game providers, a process that is essential in getting a game to the marketplace. Even with game providers informing regulators or GCBs that only certain aspects of a game module submitted for approval have changed and that the vast majority of the game module components has remained the same, such as the random number generator, game logic, operating system code, pay tables, and so on, the GCB must still manually verify that these components are, in fact, the same. This must be done, for example, regardless of the trustworthy relationship a GCB may have with a reputable game provider with a clean record before the board. Consequently, the game verification process by the GCB still takes significant time and effort by the GCB or regulatory staff, thereby limiting the rate or flow in which new games are introduced to the wager gaming market.